The Dreadful Tide
by Alcarincalacirya
Summary: An account of the War of Wrath and the destruction of the western lands


Thanks to those who've read this and mailed me/reviewed it. I will be updating the story shortly from the POV of my character from a Silmarillion RP that I'm involved in. He Was a Cuivienen Elf who is still around at the time of Sauron's first war against Middle Earth. Other sections of his history may be going up as I get the time to fill them in. If there is any interest in the actions of Alcarincalacirya (the 'Glorious Cleft of Light'), let me know.  
  
Now the cry went up and rang from mountainside to mountainside. Middle Earth marched on Morgoth. The song wavered through the skies, challenging the Constrainer to meet battle. The horns and voices fell silent and awaited his reply. Silence seized the air. Elves waited. Men gripped their swords and axes, anxious for the onset of combat. Horses stamped the ground. The rock breathed, as voice on voice screams broke open the earth. At which the host of mighty Angband emptied out upon the plains of Anfauglith, and there the darkened sands bled crimson rivers before the terror of Morgoth's spite. Had the armies of the Valar been a torrent, they broke upon the dark enemy's shores like lunatic tides and intermingling grains took up the battle; light fought dark, and by these growing lakes and pools of the dead, the War of Wrath at last was joined.  
  
Foul goblin-folk and urúk-hai took up sword with southron men and those to the east where the world grown weary of sin had forgotten the light of Cuivienen. Sharp were their teeth and blades, and they purposed to drink deep that day of the life-houses of both men and elves. Their swords were charged with hate, their faces with fear, for the will of the Dark Lord drove them on. Strong and unchecked the will of Morgoth had grown while the Valar stood in muted contemplation amidst the western seas and men and elf squabbled in Middle Earth for trinkets, broken lands and illusions of power. His gaze had ventured far from Angband, and he perceived the unity of men and elves as they advanced, and not since Gwindor, eyes ablaze with hatred and with vengeance, had strode across the plains of Anfauglith, had Melkor ruined rued his lot. Yet the host of Angband was not emptied easily or all at once, so now, as men and orcs stood arms to arms, helm to wicked head, Morgoth Bauglir sneered from deep beneath the rock, and darkness was his faith, and spewing blackness clouded all.  
  
The land was strangled by a darkness more terrible and deeply unfathomed than the grave. It was as if the Dark Lord reached out his hand and cast to ruin all the light of the lands as once he had done at Ezellohar, swallowing within his ravenous maw all hope and spitting out bitter clouds of ash which darkened even night. Terror gripped the sky. But the fullest extent of Morgoth's blight was only now beginning to be called to stand beside his unending hate of Middle Earth. For behind his orcs and men, and all the other creatures corrupted by malignant words and gloom-grown hatred given form, stood an older race. Twisted and disfigured beyond the warp of years, from once-bright Maiar blood they came, each obeying his silent sinister call. In shadows they assembled, leeching life from out the land, and bringing all to dread where they looked, for they were dark to light, despair to hope, death to life. Bursting forth to flame and striding down the armies of the Valar, the valaruakar, shadow and fire from before the age of elves and men, now lit the sky aflame with rage. And their howls could be heard on fury-wings of night, rending the sky asunder.  
  
Like a ripple on a lake of fire the Belrig[1] swept inevitably, unstoppably towards the armies of men and elves. The houses of Bëor, Haleth and Hador stood firm before the curtailing curtain of flame that famished through the vanguard of the elves and devoured deep their forces, seeking to destroy all that was good of this Middle Earth; to supplant even passing day with eternal night. But though consumed by fire, the elves were not diminished in spirit, lamenting the lost plains of Ard-Galen, grasses dry, dead and gone as dust-eaten bone, with renewed vigour they drove the darkness back, and pressed forth even to the heart of Angband. Elves fought on though their fine cloths and raiments were charred to pitch; elves fought on though their swords had melted and they used their hands and an age of vengeance; elves fought on though their spirits clung by gossamers to their charnels. All were consumed in baths of fire that dipped the gleaming sky toward the earth and westward looked with envy and with odious hate.  
  
Yet the elves were not defeated. Broken like waves upon the rocks, they mustered their forces and struck again their fatal hammer-blow against the scorn of Morgoth. His armies marshalled amidst the furious fires of elf- kind laid to waste and roared. Terrible and deep that hatred roar dashed the skies and sounded in the valleys and the plains as if to memorise a second Lammoth. But its triumphant shout now to dischordant panic turned and fled, for charging in the sky, star-banner held aloft, Ëarendil headed up the hosts of Valinor. As dark and evil a creature as Melkor had become, the Valar were beings of light; as destructive as he was, they created; as terrible, beautiful. Driving back the clouds of ashen smoke, they dawned the final day on Morgoth's realm, and wept from one to all that the shadow had grown this dark. Before their iridescent lume the Belrig fled, feeling at last once more the awe and ire that falls upon beings who dared to strive with gods and make contention mockery upon this Middle Earth.  
  
But Morgoth was not finished. From out the deepest corners of Angband where no living thing had ventured in an age of this darkened orb; in vaults too deep for the Valar to have found when first they removed this darkling prince from off his throne of malevolence made flesh: the greatest and most terrible of Morgoth's allies took to wing. Their flight once more threw night upon the sky and blackened under their bellowing jaws the battlefield far flung below. They were death. On wings of smoke they flew, and confusion, their master, struck his final blow. The greatest of their number took their head - an abomination of Morgoth's perverted will - Ancalagon the Black. Greater in stature he was even than Glaurung, the father of all dragons, and with a hunger for death that could sate ravenous Ungoliant; obsidian, his form scowled deep from far above the lighted plains, and with malice in his mind he slipped his fiery torrent forth.  
  
Men and elf and indistinguishable mass seethed and writhed within the all- consuming flames as wing on wing of dragons scoured and scorched the earth of all who crawled upon it. Men. Elves. Orcs. All alike were blasted unto cinders and to ash. As men had done at Nirnaeth Arnoediad, so here dragons turned the tide fire-red before evaporating Anfauglith in their searing discourse. But dragons were not the only creatures upon the winds that day. The feather of Thorondor, long harbouring icy hate for he whose decadent might had cast them down from out their eyries long ago, screeched to the fore, and Eärendil at their beak.  
  
Through all the fire and smoke-filled conflict, none below could tell who held dominance in the skies as scale and feather clashed. Below, armies were sundered by crashing dragons, flaming eagles from the heavens, as star- filled firmament began to weep these giants upon the ground. But highest and greatest of the fight, Ancalagon and Eärendil, atop mighty Thorondor, strove against each other. The great dragon breathed plumes of acrid smoke and fire, and burned Eärendil's face where the light of Valinor burned bright. Thorondor dipped, and seemed to fall. Ancalagon swooned, impulsive majesty clinging to his brow. But the eagles clawed back, Thorondor their marshal, ripping and tearing every vestige of their former flight that had been stolen and corrupted to give these creatures wing. Fire answered in return.  
  
Cold and sharp like ice the minds of dragons are, but Ancalagon's was Helcaraxë. "Why do you fight when in fire and ice my lord will subjugate this world? And you, when lying at his feet, blinded, beaten, will beg his mercy that your limitless years be stopped up. No death for elves." The cruel words were rock and split the heavens twain. As if in reinforcement of iniquity, the sky laughed. Dark lightening and cinder rain bled down and stung the eyes of those below, but even through that wall of falling pitch, the tide of battle ebbed from Morgoth's side. His hand had indeed grown long, his talons curved inwards, but not so long that nought could slip his grasp. Between forked lightening and the lashing rain, Eärendil struck, and pierced the heart of Ancalagon, tearing inside a fatal wound. At which the dragon's staggered eyes widened and bespoke his fear, for all his life had burned too bright, and at the last he fell, comprehending mortal death too late; to ash his spirit seared like autumn on the winds.  
  
Mighty in body as great Glaurung was in mind, Eärendil cast dark Ancalagon down and smote to ruin utterly his darkened purpose, for Eärendil's heart and soul now blazoned with the light of the Valar. Morgoth's smile lay frozen, cracking on his stony face. Even as he had laughed at Nirnaeth Arnoedid, so now his triumph turned to bitter tears, and all his bastions of dread came tumbling down around his withered and defeated frame. Stone crashed. Rock gave. And the towers of Thangorodrim crumbled like a dream before the breathing dawn, burying forever the smashed and vanquished form of their destroyer. Ancalagon the Black had been defeated.  
  
Below the hordes of Angband gibbered and broke ranks at seeing their master's champion cast through mountainside and snow, and the ice thrown up shattered down upon them like a million arrows, splintering frore and icy hearts with icy death. Their lifeless lids reflected back the terror turned upon them, for the Valar strode into the fray and fury was unleashed on Middle Earth. Some there were who fled, some hid, some prayed to their Dark Lord for deliverance, but he sat upon his throne recalling from abyssal depths the fear of long ago. All were hunted down. All destroyed. The dungeons of Angband were turned loose, but little of what sputumed forth lived long, Ilúvatar be praised. It is known that Sauron made good his flight by what routes the Valar sundered under waves. Rumours spoke of others too that fled the field and lived, not hunted down by the wrathful retribution of the elves. For here the elves stopped, for the most part, for they had glutted their desire for blood. Like a mob, stopping only too late to see the ruin of their cries, in body-barracks now elf and man alike both stood, and all around them rivers swam of soul-house nectar that would never blossom, never see the light. It seeped into the ground and stained it permanently red, a scarlet tributary beneath eroding seas. There were some who pursued the allies of Morgoth until the days of their death, travelling deep and wide across this Middle Earth, but this tale does not speak of them, and their fates are known only to Mandos. Morgoth defeated, there was but one more action to be undertaken.  
  
The ceiling of Angband buckled under the entrance of the Valar, and the rock sighed, for it knew the return of light once more. The whole procession of the Valar, Angainor at the ready, suggested through the caves and fissures deep into the darkest places of world. Oromë at their head on Nahar, the sounds of Valaróma echoed in the deep and empty caverns of Angband, and Morgoth at last understood the folly of his betrayal, and the destruction to which he had brought Middle Earth. But even at this last, the Dark Lord's vengeance against the hosts of Manwë was not sated. Battered and defeated before his foes, he cried aloud: "Blessed One of Ilúvatar. Like a plague upon this blighted rock I will remain. Though you may sound this world from Taniquetil to the darkest reaches of Angband, like a cancer grown upon the bones of Middle Earth you will not remove me without cutting out the lands and washing down the gulfs of all that you hold dear." At this Manwë turned to Ulmo and with a leaden heart uttered a single irrectractable word: "Ëa."  
  
----------------------- [1] Belrig - an alternative plural for Balrog 


End file.
